1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to portable personal computers and, more particularly, to multifunctional portable electronic platforms. The invention facilitates connecting various external modules including independent functioning devices to an electronic platform using exterior grooves and guides in the platform.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, the computer industry has seen enormous growth in the market for personal computers that are commonly referred to as notebook and subnotebook personal computers. These types of personal computers are generally popular because of their small size, light weight, and overall portability.
While manufacturers of notebook and subnotebook personal computers have enjoined success of their products for a number of years, this success was not without a price to users. In order to make their personal computers lightweight, and therefore popular, manufacturers had to sacrifice certain devices. That is, they had to take out devices generally included in the shell or frame of the notebook or subnotebook computer. For example, they took out floppy drives that were previously standard parts of a notebook computer. In this way they decreased the total functionality of the notebook and subnotebook computers.
In some cases, however, notebook computer manufacturers added external connectors and included internal PCMCIA slots using an industry standard 68 pin connector in the notebooks and subnotebooks so the functionality of these computers could be enhanced by connecting them to external devices using the connectors or by connecting them to standard PCMCIA cards. Using internal PCMCIA slots and cards (with limited standard sizes) to connect external devices can make these notebook and subnotebook computers less portable and, perhaps, less attractive to users.
The growth of the personal computer market in the last few years has also lead to expanded use of personal computers for many functions. For example, companies have added devices like CD-ROM drives (and related software) that can transform a personal computer into a multimedia system that can use full motion video (and related sound) stored on a compact disk ("CD"). Companies have also added global positioning systems ("GPS"), which can identify a location (latitude and longitude) in the world, to personal computers to create electronic mobile mapping systems, which can use the location identified by the GPS with special software in the personal computer to specify a location on maps of the world. However, at the present time, these multifunctional systems are not very portable. For example, multimedia personal computers tend to be very large. Furthermore, conventional systems do not allow a user to easily convert a personal computer from a multimedia system into an electronic mapping system or a video teleconferencing system.
With regard to portability, sales of notebook personal computers with a pen tablet (or other means for using a special pen pointer indicator, etc.) to enter information or otherwise instruct the computers has also grown. In other words, with pen-based computers, users do not need to use keyboards or other input devices, such as a mouse, to enter information into or to issue instructions to the computer. With pen-based computers, users can simply write on a tablet that, at least in portable notebook computers, is usually the screen of the computer. The computer then interprets the user's writing as either text, graphics, or commands. However, these pen-based computers suffer the same drawbacks as other notebook personal computers, that is, as manufacturers made them smaller functionality suffered. Increasing the functionality of these systems generally results in a decrease in their portability. Furthermore, conventional systems do not allow a user to easily transform a pen-based portable computer into a multimedia system, an electronic mapping system, or a video teleconferencing system.
In summary, current notebook, subnotebook, and pen-based portable computers do not provide a great deal of flexibility to users. Conventional computers do not provide the capability to change their configuration by simply sliding an external module of any size, for example, a CD-ROM module or GPS module, into an external docking bay on a computer that transforms the computer (with the added module) into a new system with enhanced functionality.